IUSE:EHR:Collaborative Research:The Role of Non-Cognitive and Affective (NCA) Factors in Engineering and Computing Student Academic Performance

工程和计算机教育仍然是美国现在和未来竞争力、劳动力发展和技术优势的关键要素。了解学生在STEM专业的成功和失败的方式，并制定强有力的方式来支持他们，将为我们的学生、我们的机构和我们的国家带来红利。该项目正在完成对非认知和情感(NCA)因素在本科工科课程学生学业表现中的作用的第一次全国性、综合性研究，这些因素包括个性、坚韧、身份和许多其他因素。了解NCA因素的作用使该项目能够继续为需要学业或个人支持的学生开发适当的校园资源。这个项目展示了NCA因素如何指示最有潜力的支持资源类型来帮助有需要的学生，从而使他们能够继续取得学业成功。本项目使用混合方法设计来探索NCA因素在本科工科学生学业成功中的作用。这三个合作机构在多个环境中呈现了不同的学生群体，正在收集调查、访谈和干预数据，并使用包括回归和拓扑数据分析在内的各种统计技术，将其与课程成绩衡量的学业表现相关联。该项目具有重要的智力价值，因为它是第一个系统地检查学生在面临特定障碍时的学习表现的项目，这些障碍是由他们的NCA概况和认知构成所调解的。它通过在多个环境中实施“相同的”干预措施，并认识到当地环境在执行和成果中的作用，展示了更广泛的影响。传统定义的多样性和“潜在的”多样性在回答研究问题方面的作用对研究和实践者群体都具有重要的影响。

Engineering and computing education remains a critical ingredient for US competitiveness, workforce development, and technological supremacy now and into the future. Understanding the ways in which students succeed and fail in STEM majors, and developing powerful ways to support them, will pay dividends for our students, our institutions, and our nation. This project is completing the first national, comprehensive study of the role of non-cognitive and affective (NCA) factors, including personality, grit, identity, and many others, in student academic performance in undergraduate engineering curricula. Understanding the role of NCA factors allows the project to continue developing appropriate on-campus resources for students in need of academic or personal support. This project is demonstrating how NCA factors can indicate the kinds of support resources with highest potential to help students in need, thus enabling their continued academic success.This project uses a mixed-methods design to explore the role of NCA factors in undergraduate engineering student academic success. Across the three partner institutions, which present diverse student bodies in multiple settings, survey, interview, and intervention data is being collected and correlated to academic performance as measured by course grades using a variety of statistical techniques including regression and topological data analysis. The project has important intellectual merit because it is the first project to systematically examine student academic performance in the face of specific obstacles as mediated by their NCA profile and cognitive makeup. It demonstrates broader impact by operationalizing the "same"intervention in multiple settings, and recognizing the role of local context in the implementation and outcomes. The role of both traditionally-defined and "latent" diversity in answering the research questions holds important implications for the research and practitioner communities alike.